All territories start normal except South Kosovo (neutral 2) and capitals, which are starting positions with 4 troops; each player gets 1 capital and leftover capitals start as neutral 3:s.

South Kosovo, Niksic and Slovenian Littoral start as neutral 2.

2-3 player games start with 11 territories each (10 + 1 capital)4 player games start with 9 each (8 + 1 capital)5 player games start with 7 each (6 + 1 capital)6 player games start with 6 each (5 + 1 capital)7 player games start with 5 each (4 + 1 capital)8 player games start with 5 each (4 + 1 capital)

I like it, Yugoslavia could use some love. I must say I liked the more colorful version you posted in HCS more

I understand the bonus area divisions, but Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia (especially Croatia) are by no means feasible to obtain and hold until endgame. I suppose you could just chalk it up to the preset political/ethnical boundaries or the geography, but nonetheless I'm not sure how well this map will play, with the peripheral small bonus areas and the large, unobtainable ones in between. As for the gameplay elements you've included, I like the Adriatic Sea concept, but am not fond of the capitals. The auto-deploys only make the smaller bonus areas only easier to hold (since their capitals are all within a bordering territory) and worth more. Belgrade... It's a neat idea with it assaulting all the capitals, but I have a hard time seeing first, the reasoning behind it (aside from just a nice gameplay addition), and second, seeing it be too effective. As already stated, all the capitals in the smaller bonus areas are within a border territory, so they will be well protected, therefore, it can't really be used as a tool to break bonuses, merely a way to skip over a few territories to Zagreb or Sarajevo, the only two possible capitals to attack mid-game.

Something gameplay-wise needs to be changed, as the bonus area boundaries really aren't working with standard gameplay. One solution, I think, would be to use the "+X per Y territories in one bonus area" approach. In this way, you could even keep the capitals and such (the auto-deploys now being worth just a tad more, yet not being too unfair, given the smaller bonus areas would be worth less, and wouldn't necessarily need hefty protection) and it would increase the value of the formerly near-worthless middle bonus areas, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Starting positions and the bonus per territory in each bonus area could easily (more or less) be set to balance things out: +1 per 2 for Slovenia, Vojvodina, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia, +1 per 3 for Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. You could even do +1 per 2 in all bonus regions, but it would take a little more work with the starting positions.

Small nitpick: If you prefer to keep the gameplay as is, I'd suggest for Macedonia, either removing the mountains between Polog and West Kosovo and up it to +3, or merge two territories and keep the +2. If you decide to go the +X for Y route explained above, I think the mountains could still stand to be removed.

-Sully

P.S. I just realized what I suggested is strikingly similar to your and Helix's Korea map, lol.

Yeah I'm not set on what I intend to do with the capitals. However, I'm planning on keeping the gameplay of this map pretty close to standard. I've been doing lots of maps with complex/experimental gameplay, and this is a change of pace, back to the roots sort of thing here.

natty_dread wrote:Yeah I'm not set on what I intend to do with the capitals. However, I'm planning on keeping the gameplay of this map pretty close to standard. I've been doing lots of maps with complex/experimental gameplay, and this is a change of pace, back to the roots sort of thing here.

Fair enough, but you really can't ignore the glaring issue of the bonus areas. Every game will have players retreating to the smaller bonus areas at the beginning... I really don't think it's conducive to good gameplay. Something has to be done. I'll ponder on this myself, as I hope you will, too.

Victor Sullivan wrote:Every game will have players retreating to the smaller bonus areas at the beginning...

That happens on every map. A map should have small & easy areas for quick bonuses in the early game, and larger, harder bonuses to expand for the mid-late game.

Also you can't consider the larger bonus areas alone. For example, with the planned impassables, Bosnia has 5 borders (not counting the capital) but if you also take Karlovac it reduces the borders to 4.

Serbia is very hard to hold on it's own, but if you also hold Macedonia & Kosovo, you have a very strong bonus with only 4 borders.

The only really problematic area I can see is Croatia, which means Slovenia doesn't have a feasible place to expand to. I could compensate this by increasing Slovenia's bonus, making it stronger in the early game but weaker in the mid/late game.

Well, how about approaching it from the opposite direction: the rivers? You're right, mountains are everywhere in Yugoslavia, and they don't form a really meaningful pattern (speaking from a warlord's perspective, of course. I'm sure it's a very meaningful pattern to a geologist.)

If you just accept that mountains are everywhere, but the river valleys make them passable, then zones become connected if and only if they share a common river.

Next iteration -I decided to scrap the previous capital idea, in favour of a more conventional approach - the capitals now give a bonus, and there is now a victory condition for holding Belgrade + 4 other capitals which gives Belgrade a slight edge.

Also I put in some impassables. They're ugly, I know, I'll make them nicer later.

Since you seem to be able to whip these things off in no time, how about trying my idea, just as a quick experiment? Just make everything impassable except where the river valleys (or on the coast, the sea) makes a passageway. For instance, the Una region only connects to Croatia because the Una valley creates a natural opening through the mountains. Trebinje only connects to Serbia because the Drina connects them. And so on.

I know it's unusual, and I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it would make your life difficult, but like I said you seem to be able to knock off experiments quickly and easily. And it might lead to something really unique, even while being geographically accurate.

but this is a map a lot of people have wanted for a long time. I think the victor condition seems a little tacked on. I like the cities bonus, but I don't know if the Belgrade +4 thing is really necessary.

The graphics texture is missing a certain something... I'm not sure what. I like the cement block feeling, very Cold War imo. So that's good. But the colors are too purely put on there. Could you weather them some?

The mountains are too 3d modeled for the map.... I wonder if you could work something in there using the cement background. Maybe chipped cement or ridges of cement.

Anyway, this is all advanced stuff for this map... if you're happy to continue this map, I'm happy to move it on.